Jonathan Burbaum

Credits: ARPA-E

Jonathan Burbaum's focus at ARPA-E is in advanced biotechnology applications for biofuels
and the production of biologically-based chemical feedstocks.

Prior to joining ARPA-E, Burbaum was a San Diego-based biotechnology
consultant focusing on realizing value from novel technologies, products, and commercial strategies in the life sciences.
He is the founder of two companies, Azure Therapeutics and Gnosys Consulting, and has worked extensively for corporate, venture,
and government clients. Before entering consulting, he played seminal roles with two venture-backed startup companies,
Pharmacopeia (from inception, through IPO and commercial launch) and ActivX Biosciences (now a division of Kyorin Pharmaceuticals).
He began his industrial career at the Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, N.J. in 1991.

Burbaum received his B.S. in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1981, and his Ph. D.
from Harvard University - where he worked for Jeremy R. Knowles on the energetics of enzymatic catalysis - in 1988.
From 1988 to 1991, Burbaum conducted post-doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Paul Schimmel,
focusing on protein structure, function and folding. He received his M.B.A.
from the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego in 2009.